Feds say Ferguson stashed $2.2 million in cash, checks and CDs

4:12 PM, January 28, 2013

Illustration by Rick Nease/Detroit Free Press

Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

'Kilpatrick Enterprise' trial coverage

Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, his father, Bernard Kilpatrick, and his longtime contractor friend Bobby Ferguson were convicted in U.S. District Court in Detroit. They were accused in a conspiracy to enrich themselves by rigging City of Detroit contracts through the mayor's office. Kwame Kilpatrick was convicted on 24 of 30 counts, Ferguson was found guilty on nine of 11 counts and Bernard Kilpatrick was convicted on one of four counts. A fourth defendant, former water department director Victor Mercado, pleaded guilty to conspiracy during the trial and awaits sentencing.

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Jurors in Detroit’s public corruption trial saw photographs today of stacks of cash, checks and certificates of deposit totaling more than $2.2 million discovered in secret safes and strongboxes belonging to Bobby Ferguson.

FBI Special Agent Gwen Rosenthal testified agents found the currency during raids in 2009 and 2010 inside wall safes and stashed strongboxes that Ferguson kept in his various offices and homes.

Rosenthal said one safe, holding $275,000 cash and $520,800 in CDs, was found secreted behind a wall panel in a bathroom of Ferguson’s office inside Xcel Construction at the downtown Guardian Building.

“It was full, pretty much to the top,” Rosenthal said.

The photographic display was shown as the prosecution’s case winds down against Ferguson, former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, and his father, Bernard Kilpatrick. The government expects to finish presenting its side in the trial, which already has spanned four-and-a-half months, on Tuesday. After a one-day recess, the plan is for the defense to begin presenting its witnesses.

Ferguson faces no tax charges in the case, but the prosecution showed the stacks of currency, perhaps, to bolster its assertion that the city contractor benefited illegally from his close relationship to Kilpatrick while the latter was mayor in 2002-08.

The trio of defendants faces numerous charges, including that they used the power of the mayor’s office to enrich themselves and others by rigging city contracts. The racketeering charge carries a sentence of up to 20 years if they are convicted.

Another agent, Carol Paskiewicz of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, testified that Ferguson received $124,756,491 in revenue from city contracts when Kilpatrick was mayor. Of that, $83,829,612 came from contracts the government says are tainted, and as such are a focus of this trial.

Michael Rataj, one of Ferguson’s lawyers, countered prosecution arguments by suggesting Ferguson’s banks all closed his accounts when they learned he was under federal investigation. Rataj said his client had nowhere else to put the cash.